Infinity Academy
by Max Sinclair
Summary: Harry Potter X-over. A tale about the witches 5. Dark at times. This is a prequel, the main story will be posted after I finish this.


DISCLAIMER: I don't own the rights to a lot of characters I'm going to use. The main setting is in the world of J.K. Rowling, but in Japan. This is fan-fiction. Some characters are original, some I don't own. That's the way this works. If you need a more thorough legal statement and you own the rights to something I've used, just let me know.

AN: Generally If I'm going to use any Japanese, I'll either let the context inform you what I'm referring to, or it's because I don't feel English really has a correlating word. If I end up using something that you don't understand, send me a message.

Part 1: The Dark Mansion

Magic is steeped in the culture and traditions of every human on the planet affectionately called Earth by its inhabitants. Most of these humans, thinking themselves quite clever, had come to believe magic only existed in stories, imaginings, metaphysically, or not at all. Some believed it all attributed to an omnipresent force (or collection of forces) that may or may not be anthropomorphic. This entity (or entities) was either a perfect saint or a colossal douche bag, depending on some unknown factor.

Living amongst these humans were other humans that knew better. Magic was part of their everyday life, and there was nothing super about the supernatural. After years of brutal war most either separated or hid their world completely from those other humans moving around them. They began to refer to these others as plebeians.

In a collection of islands, the residents called Japan, these magical folk remained an unknown part of the larger society. They had learned once that isolationism may lead to their death, they could never again fall from superiority.

* * *

Infertile.

The room somersaulted. Her brain exploded. She could no longer breathe. She sat down and gasped like a fish on the counter. There was an annoying buzz in the background. Why did it torment her? What was that awful racket. She focused on her surroundings and the sterile medical office came into focus. Certificates on the wall announced to the world that Dr. Tanaka Kenichi was allowed to practice plebeian medicine. The apparent doctor sat in front of her and would not be silent.

"Mrs. Suzuki. Mrs. Suzuki." He repeated incessantly. Who was this Suzuki bitch. She had half a mind to silence his nonsensical ramblings permanently and she began to reach for her wand. As her senses returned she remembered the alias she had used.

"Mrs. Suzuki, please listen there are options…" his voice cut off in a gurgle. Dr. Tanaka Kenichi ran one of the most successful fertility clinics in all of Tokyo. Unfortunately for Dr. Tanaka, the woman in front of him was not Suzuki Ayane wife to a powerful vice president as her file told him. She was Ankurai Kicho wife to an up and coming Syndicate underboss. An underboss who demanded he have an heir, and the doctor had not told her what she wanted.

Tanaka Kenichi fell to the floor writhing under her cruciatus curse as she played through the options in her head. Her husband knew it could take time to conceive. She purchased time telling him she was studying conception rituals under Shinto witches. Which was half-true. She had in fact captured and tortured numerous witches for rituals on conception. None had proven successful. Finally, she had come to this plebeian doctor only to have her worst fears confirmed. Fear welled up in her chest, if she did not conceive soon her life was forfeit. It was foolish of her to have come to a plebeian for a solution. She would simply have to re-double her efforts. If the Shinto bitches didn't have an answer then she would search the demonic realms. With 18 chambers in hell, one of them was guaranteed to have an answer…

A scream interrupted her reverie. "Imperio." The curse was reflex. She had forgotten that there were others in this office, and the nurse had peeked in the room to check on them. Possibly, she had heard the noise from Dr. Tanaka striking the floor. The nurse's honey face stared forward in a blank expression waiting for the puppet master to pull the strings.

Time to clear up this mess. The doctor was a twitching corpse, long since dead. She sent the nurse to explain to anyone curious that she had seen a spider, but Dr. Tanaka was nice enough to kill it for her.

There really had been no reason to torture him.

Always kill the messenger.

It took little time to get all records of Suzuki Ayane visiting the clinic erased, and to find out what clinic had done the blood work. Unfortunately, she'd have to apparate and eliminate any evidence herself. No using operatives and no leaving evidence. As far as anyone could know Dr. Tanaka died from a severe seizure, and Suzuki Ayane did not exist. Easy really, since she had made up the identity.

It was Sunday. Jun shuddered. He had left to ride his bike after several of the fourth years had showed up at the playground. Not paying attention to where he pedaled, he found himself in front of the Tomoe house. He didn't know if anyone actually lived there, no one did. But the kanji on the nameplate by the gate said Tomoe. He had heard even the high schoolers never dared enter the property. They lived in a quiet neighborhood and everyone seemed content to pretend this particular house never existed. It was a normal enough looking two-story house, but oddly it had a tower on the right side like a school. The place always seemed to be shadowed by storm clouds, even on the sunniest of days.

A drop of water hit his forehead. Mom wouldn't be happy if he got a cold. Glad of the excuse to leave, he quickly rode away. Completely forgetting the foreboding sense of doom he had felt from the house, or even that the house existed.

* * *

No one ever remembered. Kicho had seen to that when she bought the place.

Her husband had not minded her request to have a laboratory separate from the main home, knowing she preferred to be undisturbed while working. He, of course, had a port key that would take him past all of the lab's defense wards, but had never felt the need to use it.

At the top of the tower sat a room with no windows. A weapon rack hung on one wall with varying tools of torture. A naked woman hung upside down from the ceiling by a chain cuffed around her ankles. Her wrists were slit and a bucket sat beneath her collecting blood. One eye was swollen shut and bruises covered her body. She had learned not to let anymore blood hit the floor.

The house goblin would clean it up of course, but Kicho didn't approve of waste.

The girl had known nothing, but why waste a captive.

However, Kicho had forgotten about the miko. Her focus was on the table in front of her. Another priestess lay spread eagle, her wrists and ankles chained to the table corners. Her clothes had been torn away from her chest, the indignity often helped to loosen the tongue.

Over the previous hour, Kicho had carefully cut open the girls chest and begun to remove organs and preserve them for later use. She had constructed a shelf with wheels so that she could keep the jars in easy reach. This had a side benefit of ensuring anyone on the table could see their organs in the jars. She had learned a charm as a little girl that kept her specimens alive while she operated on them and allowed them to feel everything. Unfortunately, in the early years numerous specimens had gone into shock. But thanks to years of research and practice she had found how to alter the charm with transfiguration so that the body's shock mechanism would not occur.

Where's the fun if they don't feel it?

She had made the maiden watch as she beat her younger sister, but that hadn't loosened her lips. About five minutes after she began the organ harvest all of the woman's clan secrets had spilled out. What a lightweight!

But the dark-haired woman hadn't listened, just continued working.

Now she could be sure the woman wouldn't lie to her.

"Kikyo was it?" The woman whimpered in confirmation. "Tell me again, clearly, where is the entrance and I'll allow you to die now."

She smiled as the maiden told her everything. True to her word she ended the charm when the woman finished.

* * *

Kicho stood in front of a boulder the size of a house in a forest near Hiroshima. She seemed normal enough. Beautiful Japanese woman in her early twenties, hair down to her mid back, and wore a nice looking suit. But the broom in one hand and fan in the other, made her look just a little out of place.

She chuckled as she noticed the shirukume wrapping the boulder. As if that would keep her out.

With a wave of her fan the ward burst into blue flames and quickly crumbled into ash. This brought an even greater laugh to her.

Removing a ward over the entrance to the underworld certainly would have consequences for the world. Certainly, the miko that had constructed this barrier never realized a witch of her power would come here. The fools.

With a wave of her fan the boulder lifted and she guided it to the side. Before her lay a cave leading down into the mountain.

She felt a giddiness unlike any she had felt since the first gaki she had raised. To think she finally would enter the realm she had robbed so many times to produce her servants.

Kicho entered the cave.

After seeming hours of walking through a tunnel the dark haired woman strode into a vast field that stretched as far as she could see. Shrouded in perpetual darkness, shapes could be seen wrapped in robes shambling through the mist.

She mounted a broom and rose into the air. Below her stretched a river into the horizon.

"Hmm, Styx I presume." Kicho shot forward following the river.

Soon the river led her to a large palace overlooking the endless gray fields.

Kicho landed in front of two large stone gates in the exterior wall. In front of her stood two muscular yokai with dark purple skin the color of night. The one on her left had the head of an ox and the legs of a bull. The one on the right bore the head and legs of a horse. They both were easily twice her size. They crossed naginata in front of her, apparently not intending to allow her to enter. Their mistake.

"Gozu and Mezu I presume?" She smiled and drew her fan from her side.

Unanimously they spoke with a voice that echoed for miles, "Only the dead may walk here. Leave."

Kochi charged forward and dived between the horse-head's legs. As she expected the imbecile attempted to grab her with his free hand. She simply raised her fan and spoke the words, "In Dominus Necrosis."

They may be guardians of Jigoku, but they were still undead. Maybe too much for the average necromancer, but Kochi wasn't the average necromancer.

With a wave of her wand she commanded her new pet to deal with Ox-san.

Gozu leaped into the air as Mezu's halberd crashed into the ground where he had stood. He didn't know what to do, but there was no time to consult Enma. No mortal had ever defeated him or Mezu, but it seemed this wily human had taken control of his eternal friend. Was it acceptable to kill another guardian?

Only one way to handle this….charge!

Gozu landed, lowered his head and with naginata pointed forward charged the horse headed yokai. Mezu hooked his blade around Gozu's blade, swept in to the side, and shoved the pole between his friend's horns, with a sideways jerk he flipped Gozu to the side. At the same time he let himself fall backward and kicked both hooves into the other's stomach, and rolled over his shoulder flipping the other yokai over him.

Mezu quickly rolled onto his hooves and jumped in the air for a downward stab.

Gozu grunted as he landed forcefully on his back, above him his friend's halbard descended to pierce his chest. He deflected the descending blade with his pole and swung his own around to decapitate the falling yokai.

Mezu let his legs fall forward mid-air shifting his head away from the approaching blade of his fellow oni and stood with his weapon forward. His opponent kipped to his feet and charged forward. Momentarily, he wondered what happened to that woman. Forgetting about anything else he charged forward to meet the ox.

* * *

As soon as she was sure the two guardians had forgotten about her, Kochi stepped forward to enter Enma's palace. With a wave of her fan the towering doors flew open.

"Knock, knock. Anyone home?"

The dark haired witch strode confidently into the courtyard. She had studied well before she came here. Unless she touched the food all anyone here could do was throw her out. The living were not to pass, and in the same token the living could not be harmed.

Before her stood the mighty palace of Enma. In there she was sure all of the bureaucratic nonsense that was involved in processing the souls of the dead took place. Most likely involved a lot of oni running around and shuffling paperwork. Sounds boring.

Years of summoning various yokai and other horrors from the nether realm had taught her quite a bit about this place. She needed two things, the vault and the pit of fire, everything else didn't really interest her on this trip.

Getting into the vault wasn't going to be accomplished by a young human woman, even if they couldn't harm her she doubted anyone would stand idly by and just let her march in there.

She pulled a potion from her waste and grimaced, it wouldn't be pleasant and she wouldn't have much time. But this would help her accomplish what needed to be done. She tipped up the bottle and swallowed.

The human form dissolved into a cloak of darkness, all that was left was a woman's face. If she spent too long in this shadow form, she would permanently become one.

The shadow melted through the cracks at the bottom of the palace doors. Inside, the bustling oni didn't notice streams of shadowy tendrils moving across the floor. They had souls to process…busy, busy.

Moving through the palace proved easy, the shadow form also hid any vital signs, technically she wasn't alive at this moment. This meant none of the denizens here could tell she wasn't one of them.

Several levels down she rose from the floor in front of massive red doors that stood ten-times her size. Behind her she heard a sound and quickly pressed against the wall.

An oni walked into view with a massive key ring on his belt. "Put this in the vault Muka. Shine my shoes Muka. Feed the Shikome, Muka. Someday I'll run this place. Then it'll be fetch me this Enma." The oni chuckled mirthfully lost in dreams of grandeur as the vault doors swung open to admit him. He didn't notice a shadow slip in along the wall.

Kicho swooped through the air amongst the treasures, quickly she discovered what she was looking for. Lying amongst the treasures as if there was nothing special about it (someone's idea to prevent theft, no doubt) was a wooden reddish oni mask with a grimace, almost like a Kabuki mask. She snatched the mask up and fled back, none too soon as the gates were already swinging shut.

Looked like she would have to descend to lower levels. The pit she was looking for didn't generally receive visitors. She replayed the words in her head, "Encircled by a thousand souls the master suffers in a lake of fire." Let's find this master.

Kicho was starting to feel really nervous about how long she had been here when she finally found the chamber she sought. In a dark pit, a ring of spirit priests sat chanting. She assumed there were a thousand. In the center, bound by the priests' words a man boiled and burned in lava. It seemed the priests were too engrossed in maintaining the seal to notice any visitors.

She allowed herself to return to her human form with a breath of relief.

He was a tall man, probably over three meters, with dark skin. His white hair was on fire as the flesh burned off his face. He looked up as she approached.

"Arago, I believe." She held forth the mask, "I'd like to offer you a deal."

The man laughed, despite the pain he must be under it sounded like an avalanche of rocks. His voice echoed around the room, "I'm the Shogun of all you see, I do not deal."

"Okay then." She stood up and began walking away.

"Wait," the sound almost shattered her skull. "What do you want?"

She turned around smiling and returned to the edge of the lake. "I want a child."

His laughed again, she began to wonder how anyone outside wouldn't hear this. That sounded like it shook the entire building.

"Centuries ago, a cult calling themselves the Dragon's Breath discovered a nexus of dimensions hidden in the jungle. They constructed a well into the darkness. Through breeding and patricide they created a pact that would allow them to draw the energies of the well into each subsequent generation."

"This well has the power you seek."

She tossed the mask to his waiting skeletal hand and dashed away on her broom as fast as she could. She better get out of here before the shit hit the fan.

The priests began to fall over, and she risked a quick look behind her. There stood the man fully dressed in the armor of a samurai with six swords on his back. Let Enma and him duke it out, she had a well to find.

* * *

It took another month of searching for Kicho to find the temple ruins that housed the well of darkness. In the jungles of Cambodia she found the place unguarded. All that stood there was an old crone calling herself Tai. With unsurprising lack of imagination, she had demanded an unspoken future favor in trade for an heir.

Kicho didn't bargain.

The once demure looking old lady hung upside down, her flesh stripped clean from the bone. She was a tough one. Three solid days of torture before she cracked. Have to remember to keep her, she could prove a useful servant in death.

'Gather the still beating hearts of nine pure-hearted descendents of the ancients.' They could have made it difficult…

* * *

Three days later Kicho was pacing in the Tomoe tower. She knew the legend about the nine great devil hunters that had sealed the netherworld out of Tokyo. She assumed that was what the witch had been referring to. But she wasn't real familiar with it. It was always the dark wizards and witches in history that had intrigued her. She had usually passed notes to her friends when teachers had talked about devil hunters.

She certainly didn't have the time to find nine pure hearts. Her husband was growing impatient. She would have to get help.

The Infinity Academy was one of the premier magic institutions in all of Japan. It was generally the first choice gifted witches and wizards applied to. The new headmistress, Naito Kaori, was an elegant woman with gorgeous red hair that cascaded down her back. She was dressed in a simple red gown cut down the center to reveal her healthy cleavage.

In her office she bowed her head to the ground allowing her forehead to touch. "I'm yours to command my mistress." Before her loomed a dark shadow with a woman's face. Her former student Kochi had shown her years ago who the master was, and what side it was best to serve.

Kochi's voice chilled her to the bone, "Gather your best witches. I have a task for you."

"Yes, my mistress." As the shadow faded away, Kaori smiled. She already had 5 witches in mind…

TBC…

Next time: The Witches 5

AN: "The Dark Mansion" is another term for Hell. I may expand the ending of this chapter later. It won't be as dark and serious from here out, but I needed the setup.


End file.
